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Transformation in Higher Education
ISSN: (Online) 2519-5638, (Print) 2415-0991
Page 1 of 9 Original Research
Research in curriculum studies: Reflections on
nomadic thought for advancing the field
Authors: Background: Key to sustainability and expansion of any field is the intellectual works of its
1
Shan Simmonds scholars who engage in their field as in-becoming and who continually strive towards its
2
Lesley Le Grange advancement. For researchers of curriculum studies this involves being knowledgeable and
Affiliations: conversant of the underlying discourses framing and challenging the field.
1
Curriculum Studies, Aim: In South Africa, field of curriculum studies has been critiqued for being a quick-fix
Education and Human Rights
in Diversity (Edu-HRight) solution to social problems by merely approaching the curriculum as a ‘dumping ground’ and
Research Unit, Faculty of for its over-emphasis on curriculum as a schooling matter. The intent of this article was to
Education, North-West exemplify other, more current, challenges and accomplishments of the research constituting
University, Potchefstroom, the field.
South Africa
2 Setting: The publications of South African National Research Foundation-rated researchers
Department of Curriculum specialising in curriculum, because their scholarship is deemed central to building societal
Studies, Faculty of Education,
Stellenbosch University, knowledge through quality and high-impact research.
Stellenbosch, South Africa
Methods: A meta-study was conducted to determine trends in a particular cluster of
Corresponding author: publications to identify the ways that researchers are advancing in the field of curriculum
Shan Simmonds, studies in South Africa.
shan.simmonds@nwu.ac.za
Dates: Results: Four pertinent findings were evidenced. Firstly, strong localism/nationalism of the
Received: 07 Sept. 2019 field. Secondly, the higher education context as highly researched. Thirdly, the multidisciplinary
Accepted: 12 Oct. 2019 nature of South African curriculum studies research. Fourthly, strong impetus from sociological
Published: 21 Nov. 2019 work in the field.
How to cite this article: Conclusion: We reflect on nomadic thought as a starting point central to the pursuits of
Simmonds, S. & Le Grange, L., researchers in advancing the field of curriculum studies as an intellectual activity and practice
2019, ‘Research in curriculum of complicated conversation.
studies: Reflections on
nomadic thought for Keywords: curriculum studies; complicated conversation; nomadic thought; meta-study research,
advancing the field’, National Research Foundation-rated researchers.
Transformation in Higher
Education 4(0), a76. https://
doi.org/10.4102/the.v4i0.76 Introduction
Copyright: Research in the field of curriculum studies
© 2019. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS. This work Curriculum studies is an academic field comprising scholars who conduct research to understand
is licensed under the curriculum. In other words, curriculum studies is an intellectual practice and enterprise in which
Creative Commons
Attribution License. curriculum is made the object of study. Pinar (2014) points out that although contemporary
curriculum research may have originated in the USA, it has become recontextualised worldwide
in nations with distinctive histories and cultures. Pinar’s (2014) contention is important because it
highlights the political dimension of curriculum studies, as decentring of the field is an antidote
to globalisation. The situated and reconstructed character of curriculum studies offers a challenge
to standardisation and homogenisation that is associated with globalisation. The two editions of
the International Handbook of Curriculum Research (Pinar 2003, 2014) show that the distinctiveness
of national histories and cultures continue to structure the curriculum as it is enacted in classrooms
in specific local contexts. Moreover, curriculum research in many nations has focussed on
curriculum policy-making and implementation. It is in the context of these particular national
interests that scholars of curriculum in South Africa have been engaged in, making it possible for
us to speak of the distinctiveness of South African curriculum studies and reflect on its
Read online: advancement.
Read online:
Scan this QR
Scan this QR
code with your
code with your The first attempt to capture some of the intellectual history and present circumstances of the field
smart phone or
smart phone or
mobile device
mobile device in South Africa is published in a collection of essays edited by Pinar (2010). This collection of
to read online.
to read online. essays (Pinar 2010) and the later chapter on ‘Curriculum research in South Africa’ authored by Le
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Page 2 of 9 Original Research
Grange (2014) tell us that this field in South Africa has about how education might be reimagined given the
remained divided because of the country’s apartheid history pervasiveness of neoliberalism when the latter is bringing into
and that curriculum research is mainly focussed on school question the very assumptions that education has been based
curriculum. Although Pinar (2010) and Le Grange (2014) upon. Smith (2014) suggests that neoliberalism needs to be
provide readers with some sense of the field’s history and analysed on an ongoing basis, so as to work through it, and
present circumstances, they do not enable us to postulate that inspiration for this ongoing examination could be found
architecture of the field in South Africa. The latter would in the wisdom traditions, which may be indigenous, religious
require a broader survey of the field. or philosophical. The third aspect that this meta-study might
therefore comment on is whether curriculum researchers in
As mentioned, situatedness characterises curriculum studies South Africa are focusing on issues associated with
worldwide and the locatedness of curriculum research neoliberalism and whether their research offers responses to
potentially counteracts imperialisms associated with Smith’s question or suggestion. In the fourth chapter, Wang
globalisation. However, the situatedness of curriculum (2014) focuses on the issue of non-violence, which she
research can also give rise to narrow nationalisms/localisms elaborates as an embodied sense of interconnectedness among
and one danger here is the thwarting of the field’s humans, which affirms compassion and a positive affiliation
advancement. In order to challenge the provincialism that with others. In other words, she argues for an embodied sense
localism can invite, in the most recent International Handbook of of affirming our common humanity. She finds support for her
Curriculum Research, Pinar (2014) commissions four argument from several philosophical, religious and ethical
introductory chapters to challenge accounts presented by traditions, including the African notion of ubuntu, the Chinese
authors from different nations, which we briefly outline here. notion of Tao and indigenous peace-making traditions in
Our assumption is that parochial localism hinders the North America.
advancement of the field. In the first chapter, Autio (2014)
highlights the moral dimensions of education, and makes the Wang’s (2014) ideas could be extended to all efforts that
point that it is the morality that makes education educative. affirm our common humanity (our humaneness) which may
Autio’s (2014) use of ‘moral’ is not in a moralistic sense but be human rights discourses, dialogues on sustainable human
more akin to ethics, a commitment to engage in an ongoing futures et cetera. The fourth aspect that this meta-study could
basis the worthiness of knowledge – about the worthiness of
what is included/excluded in teaching/learning programmes. comment upon is whether South Africa researchers are
Moreover, it is this sense of the ‘moral’ that informs our writing about ways of affirming our common humanity
‘profession’s ethics, our commitment to study, and teach as through building solidarities (even though complicated) in
we engage in academic research to understand curriculum’ intra-national and transnational spaces.
(Pinar 2014:2) and to understand curriculum as a complicated
conversation that occurs among scholars of the field and With these international discourses in mind, we set out to
between scholars and students. The first aspect that this meta- explore what curriculum studies discourses have been
study could comment on is the loyalty of South African researched by South African scholars in the field. A meta-
curriculum scholars to the profession’s ethics. In the second study was conducted to engage with the following question:
chapter, McCarthy, Bulut and Patel (2014) discuss the In what ways are National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated
reconfiguration of power that globalisation accelerates, with a researchers advancing in the field of curriculum studies in
particular focus on race. They point out that race cannot be South Africa?
viewed in isolation but needs to be understood in
contemporary times as ‘structured through contradictory Meta-study research
processes of globalisation, localisation, migration, and
technologies of surveillance’ (Pinar 2014:2). By the latter, Four common purposes of a meta-study are: to contribute to
McCarthy et al. (2014) are referring to biometric technologies knowledge development in the field; inform policy decision-
of information, face scanning, finger printing, DNA sampling making processes; synthesise findings and/or determine
etc. The authors’ focus on race could, of course, be extrapolated trends in a particular cluster of studies (Paterson et al. 2001;
to other forms of discriminations that globalisations and new Pope, Mays & Popay 2007). Well-known researchers in health
technologies quicken or reconfigure. So, the second aspect sciences, education and other social sciences have also started
that this meta-study might comment on is what attention to acknowledge the value of conducting research in this way
South African curriculum researchers are giving to issues of (Du Preez & Simmonds 2014; Simmonds & Du Preez 2014).
race, gender, sexual orientation et cetera, and whether in such Meta-study research supports the need to capitalise on the
deliberations attention is given to the contradictory processes ‘analysis of the theory, methods, and findings of [existing]
involved in the construction of various discriminations, research and the synthesis of these insights into new ways of
including through technologies of surveillance. In the third thinking about phenomena’ (Paterson et al. 2001:1).
article, Smith (2014) discusses the influence of neoliberalism
on education that entails, among other things, privatisation, The global increase in knowledge production too has created
standardised assessments and the use of technologies to make a need for research to be synthesised and packaged in less
teaching/learning more efficient. He asks a pertinent question, relativist ways so that more trustworthy generalisations
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Page 3 of 9 Original Research
could be made (Pope et al. 2007:3). It is dynamic, iterative and the departments of architecture and physiotherapy. This
therefore requires tailored methods and approaches based on emphasises that curriculum researchers are predominantly
review questions posed (Dixon-Woods et al. 2005:49; Pope aligned with the broad academic field of education.
et al. 2007:12). Although tailored (unique in purpose and
operandi), to ensure validity and reliability, each study must We then developed working procedures to establish initial
be explicit about how the sample is derived, what needs to be inclusion and exclusion criteria so that a sample could be
analysed and how (Paterson et al. 2001; Pope et al. 2007). identified and the corpus of documents (publications) could
be selected. The criteria included accessing (1) each researcher’s
In the meta-study conducted for this article, the authors scientific publications in the last 8 years, including 2019
opted to determine trends in a particular cluster of (2010–2019), (2) only scientific publications that took the form
publications so as to identify the ways that researchers are of articles in accredited journals, chapters in academic books
advancing in the field of curriculum studies in South Africa. and edited/authored academic books and (3) publications
The NRF of South Africa (an independent statutory body) that referred to curriculum and/or curriculum-related
has a rating system that identifies researchers who are concepts. We decided to use this timeframe because it
counted among the leaders in their fields of expertise and correlates with the NRF rating system, which evaluates a
gives recognition to those who constantly produce high- researcher’s past 8 years of scientific research output. To
quality research outputs (NRF 2019). The NRF rating update the sample as much as possible, we included 2019
processes are coordinated by academics of specialist publications that were available during the data collection
committees who evaluate the international and national peer period (April and May 2019). We opted only to include
reviewers’ reviews on the quality and impact of researchers’ publications listed above in criterion (2) because we could
research over an eight-year period. then ensure that a peer review process had been undertaken,
strengthening the contributions that made to curriculum. We
Researchers receive rating within categories (A, B, C, Y or P), excluded other works such as: conference proceedings, study
with each category having sub-categories to further specify guides, textbooks and editorials. Reference to curriculum
recognition according to factors such as the national/ and/or curriculum-related concepts was an obvious criterion
international significance, impact and quality of research considering that the focus of this article is to identify the ways
et cetera. We drew our sample of publications from the research by which researchers are advancing this field. Whether the
of NRF-rated researchers because we regard this research as publications were single or co-authored was not taken into
valuable to recognising publications that are building societal consideration because we acknowledge the significance of
knowledge through quality and high-impact research. How sole and collaborative research.
did the authors arrive at their sample would be elaborated on
as level 1 in the meta-study design. However, firstly a schematic Between April 2019 and May 2019 we worked together with
representation of the meta-study process (Figure 1). our institutional librarians to search different databases
(ResearchGate, Academia.edu; Google Scholar and
Level 1: Design and organisation institutional websites) to identify the publications meeting
our criteria. To check the completeness and accuracy of the
We set out to identify the population, sample and corpus of publications that we were able to access online, the scholars
documents. The population comprised NRF-rated researchers. whose curricula vitae (CVs) we did not have were asked to
We were able to identify the population on NRF website voluntarily email a CV of their publications (2010–2019). This
through publically accessible information stipulating the led us to a sample of 813 publications (N). We had to obtain
names of rated researchers (see documents provided at https:// full texts of these publications to ensure that they all met the
www.nrf.ac.za/rating). A document listing approximately inclusion criteria. Although this was a lengthy process,
3900 names, disclosed each researcher’s surname, initials, title, especially when the texts were not openly available as pdf
rating, institutional affiliation and specialisation. From this list and when texts had to be requested through interlibrary
we arrived at 40 researchers’ (N = 40) profiles who listed loans, still we persisted, as this was crucial for a complete,
0 valid and reliable database. We then refined our initial
curriculum as one of the areas of specialisation. By consulting
the websites of the institutions that researchers were affiliated selection criteria by choosing the seven highest cited
with, we learned that all curriculum researchers were affiliated publications of each researcher. Having a sample of the most
with South Africa’s higher education institutes, except four cited publications, we believed that this could be used as a
who were based at international institutions in New Zealand, measure of research’s impact, a signal towards research
1 exemplifying the best practice and ultimately an indicator of
the UK and Hong Kong. These profiles also revealed that all the advancement of curriculum studies. This refined sample
but two of the researchers were based in faculties/departments/ selection was done by consulting the Google Scholar profiles
schools of education or centres for teaching, learning and of each researcher. In the case researchers did not have a
programme development. The two researchers who were not profile, we searched Google Scholar for their publications per
based in traditionally education-driven fields were based at title to retrieve an indication of the number of citations. The
1.Scholars who hold permanent positions at universities outside South Africa could seven most cited publications that met the criteria were then
qualify for NRF-rating if they are associated with a South African university by selected. Only two authors did not have seven publications
means of appointments such as extraordinary professors and research fellows.
http://thejournal.org.za Open Access
Page 4 of 9 Original Research
Develop working procedures and ini
al inclusion/
exclusion criteria (sampling
eview ues
on and
theore
cal explora
ons
ather corpus of documents
efine working procedures and inclusion/
exclusion criteria (sampling
Level 1:
design and
organisaon
Descripve stascal analysis
Curriculum terminology
Research context
Locaon
Methodological design
Theorecal engagement
Disciplinary focus
Nature of contribuon
Level 2: Idenfy trends
deep analysis
and trends
Level 2:
deep analysis
Meta-themes: synthesise analysed data and
engage theore
cally
Level 3: Main findings and future direc
ves
meta-themes and
main findings
FIGURE 1: A schematic representation of the meta-study process.
that met the criteria, which lead us to reach a sample of n = referenced and analysed on one Excel sheet according to the
273 (consisting of 14 books, 16 book chapters and 243 articles), accompanying Word folder comprising full texts. The
constituting 34% of the population (N = 813). This sample research employed a consistent approach to the analysis to
was deemed sufficient to ensure data saturation and external ensure that all publications were analysed and captured in
validity because it was a representative of all the publications exactly the same manner. The percentages summarising the
in the defined criteria and allowed for generalisation based data findings were calculated and checked by the authors to
on the phenomenon being studied (see Bless, Higson-Smith ensure their accuracy.
& Sithole 2013; Fox, Hunn & Mathers 2009). The data were
analysed using descriptive statistical methods so that Level 2: Deep analysis and trends
patterns could be arrived at. Descriptive statistics are simple
quantitative measures such as percentages or mean values The research question posed by this article is: In what ways
that are used to summarise data (Kaliyadan & Kulkami 2019). are NRF-rated researchers advancing the field of curriculum
In this study, we used percentages to summarise the studies in South Africa? In order to engage with this question,
quantitative data. To ensure validity and reliability during we firstly established review questions that would drive the
analysis, an audit trail was kept. Each publication was analysis of the publications in our sample. Publications have
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